Prajna Capital - An Investment Guide

Are there any best SIPs? SIPs are a medium to invest in mutual funds. Hence, there's nothing like 'best SIPs'; you need to select best or winning mutual fund schemes to invest so that SIPs work best for your objective of wealth creation to achieve long-term financial goals. So, selecting an appropriate mutual fund scheme for your SIPs is very crucial. SIPs are Best Investments as Stock Market s are move up and down. Volatile is your best friend in making Money and creating enormous Wealth, If you have patience and long term Investing orientation. Invest in Best SIP Mutual Funds and get good returns over a period of time. Know which are the Top SIP Funds to Invest Save Tax Get Rich - Best ELSS Funds For more information on Top SIP Mutual Funds contact  Save Tax Get Rich on 94 8300 8300 OR You can write to us at Invest [at] SaveTaxGetRich [dot] Com

A PPF account can be retained after maturity without making any further deposits. The balance will continue to earn interest till it is closed. Public provident fund or PPF remains one of the most popular savings options for the long term despite a gradual decline in interest rates over the years. PPF accounts have a maturity period of 15 years and they can be extended. If there is no fund requirement, financial planners say, PPF account holders should extend the account beyond 15 years. In terms of income tax implications, PPF accounts enjoy the benefit of EEE (exempt-exempt-exempt) status . Under Section 80C, contribution up to Rs 1.5 lakh in a financial year qualifies for income tax deduction. The interest earned and maturity proceeds are also tax free. What are your options when a PPF account matures? 1) A PPF account can be closed after the expiry of 15 financial years from the end of the year in which the account was opened. 2) The subscriber can retain his...

Over the last three to five years, an additional development in the actual mode of paying for the SIP investment has improved matters further. Earlier, SIPs meant writing a pile of cheques and giving them to the fund. Obviously, there was a limit to this, generally anything from 12 to 36 months. As a result, investors felt that an SIP was a fixed tenure plan. When the cheques would run out, investors would take their time to go through the whole effort again. At that point, if the markets were looking depressed, they would not do it at all.  Now, investors generally give an ECS mandate for the monthly SIP investment amount to be directly transferred from their bank accounts. Generally, this is a perpetual mandate. Stopping the SIP requires an instruction to be registered. Earlier, stopping was automatic but continuing involved a fresh pile of cheques to be written. In my experience with investors, I have felt that this change of defaults has had a huge impact.  The kind of returns that...

It makes sense to add spouse as co-owner as it helps in enhanced loan eligibility and provides tax benefits to both co-borrowers on interest and principal repayment. Also, succession of a jointly owned property is smoother compared to the lengthy process involved in case of single ownership. Here are four benefits of owning a house jointly. Lowers stamp duty One of the significant additional expenses that a buyer has to bear while buying a house is stamp duty and registration fee for registration of property papers in the buyer's name. However, "you may prefer to have your wife's name as the first owner as it can help you save a lot of money towards paying the stamp duty In many states, stamp duty fees for registration of property is higher for male buyers and lower for women. For instance, in New Delhi, a woman has to pay 4% stamp duty compared with 6% for a man; if the property is bought jointly in the name of a man and a woman, buyers have to pay a ...

We know how investing is different from just saving. If we put our saved money somewhere where it will grow, then that's investing. However, there are a number of possibilities available when we want to invest, and it isn't possible to make sensible choices without having a way to classify things. However, let's not jump into classifying investments right away. Before we do that, we need to classify our need for making an investment. Investments can be made for a huge variety of needs. You could be saving for emergency medical funds which are usually required at a moment's notice. Or you could be saving for your retirement which is a few decades away, or anything in between. We have created a useful framework for thinking about these investment needs. We divide investment needs into four levels. Each level is more fundamental than the ones that come after it. You should satisfy the need at each level before going on to the next one. Those who know a bit about psychology...

The lure of buying diamonds might be in their glitter, but you can even buy diamonds in the electronic form, through the Indian Commodities Exchange (ICEX) Ltd as derivative contracts. ICEX is a Sebi-registered commodities exchange that offers diamond futures contracts for 30 cent, 50 cent and 1 carat diamonds. What is it?   Like in other exchanges, you can buy and sell these contracts, which are priced at the wholesale market rate (ex-Surat) rather than at the retail price of polished diamonds . You can hold them in electronic mode or choose to take physical delivery. The contract units begin with 1 cent (100 cents make 1 carat). The shape, carat, colour, clarity, cut and other specifications will be mentioned as part of the contract. The standard contract has colour of 'H' level with VS2 clarity.  There are limits on the maximum order that can be placed per individual. You can even start with a small amount and invest via systematic investment p...

HAVE never understood my payslip till date, says Avni Rustagi, a native of Punjab. Avni, 25, moved to Bangalore four years back in the hope of turning her dream into reality. In that order, she took up work as a designer with an Information Technology firm. Avni pays Rs 10,000 as rent for a spacious apartment, but ask her about how she manages her other expenses and she throws her hands up in the air. Numbers scare me, she admits. I don`t know a thing about finances. She says, For instance, I don`t even understand my pay structure or CTC as it is called, what I get in hand or why I get that much. Wealth realised that Avni's dilemma is a common problem with most working people. The transformation from CTC to take home leaves mostly everyone confused. Let`s decode and understand what happens when CTC becomes take home. What is CTC? CTC is nothing but the cost that the company incurs to employ you and keep you employed. It includes your pay and anything else that the company may incu...

Non-convertible debentures(NCDs) and fixed deposits issued by companies can turn out to be good investment alternatives given that bank fixed deposits are not offering attractive rates. With several companies vying for investors' attention with these instruments, investors may be spoilt for choice. Fixed income investors have endured muted returns for some time. The one-year fixed deposit at SBI currently fetches 6.65%, while the five-year deposit earns 6.75%. Even bond funds have fetched insipid returns, clocking around 6%. But recent NCD issues suggest good times. On May 22, Dewan Housing Finance (DHFL) launched its ₹12,000-crore NCD issue, offering a coupon rate of up to 9.1%. It received subscriptions worth ₹10,000 crore the very first day, getting fully subscribed soon after. Last week, JM Financial Credit Solutions' ₹750 crore issue — offering up to 9.75% coupon rate — got oversubscribed the first day. The rates NCDs are offering are at least 200-250 bps higher than bank...

No matter what savers are hoping for, interest rates are going to stay low for years to come. It is time to study the investment alternatives. A few hiccups   along the way notwithstanding, it's more than likely that India is heading for lower interest rates for years to come, if not for decades. In fact, if one steps out of the ivory tower of economists and into the real life of savers, a huge amount of damage has already been done. A measly 2.5 - 3.5% on savings bank deposits and 5-7% on other deposits are going to be the normal from now on. Most Indian savers, including retirees who need income, are heavily invested in bank fixed deposits. Their earnings have fallen by 25% or more in the past three years. So is there a solution? As it happens, there is. There are mutual fund products that fit the bill perfectly. They not only give you higher returns than the banking products, but are also liable for a lower tax outgo, making the effective return very attractive. In fact, their l...

An ideal retirement corpus should take care of all your expenses after you stop working. But can you calculate the amount required? It involves taking into account life expectancy, interest rates, inflation and the time value of money...and can be a bit tricky. Here we explain how to use MS Excel to calculate the amount easily. But first, let's understand some basics. The concept of time value of money states that the worth of a rupee received today is more than a rupee received at a later date because of its earning potential. The concept of time value has two elements: Compounding and discounting. Compounding helps to estimate future values whereas discounting helps to estimate present values. For calculating your retirement corpus, it is the present value that matters. For example, an investment product promises ₹8 lakh in 10 years if you invest ₹4 lakh today. Given interest or term deposit rates of 8% per annum, will this investment product be profitable? You will have to find ...

The Public Provident Fund (PPF) and equity-linked saving schemes (ELSS) are popular investment options that both qualify for income tax deductions. A deduction reduces your overall tax liability. Contributions up to Rs 1.5 lakh a year qualify for tax deduction under Section 80C . Financial planners say that when it comes to investments in the PPF and ELSS mutual funds , investors should look at these investments not just from a tax-saving perspective but one that will help achieve their financial goals . ELSS mutual funds invest in equity shares of companies across sectors and market capitalization and have a three-year lock-in. An ELSS mutual fund is quite the same as a diversified equity fund , other than tax deduction benefits and the three-year lock-in. ELSS investments come with a lock-in period of three years, which is lowest among Section 80C investments. Investors should understand ELSS mutual funds are equity market-linked products. 1) The PPF is a...

They are bit more Risky. The risk comes in two forms. One is the likelihood of a fund manager losing money in a certain stock. I think if a fund manager goes wrong, the possibility of significant loss in a focused fund is far higher. Because in a focused fund a position in a stock can well be in the region of 5 to 10 percent. The other is that focused funds can be far more volatile because you have fewer stocks. Nowadays, we are seeing a volatile market. So, the days on which the market goes down you see the concentrated fund falling much more than the market, compared to a more diversified fund. I would say volatility is not as much of a risk on a 5 to 7 year basis. Because volatility, if you stay invested, is not a risk. But the risk of the fund manager going wrong is reasonably high. So, yes, focus funds do come with high risk of volatility as well as the penalty for a fund manager going wrong with his selection is very high. And if he goes wrong with a couple of things, it cou...

Rising interest rates in all eventuality can apply the brakes on a rising stock market. Of late, returns from market indices, especially mid- and small-cap indices have dwindled. "Interest rates act like gravity on valuations; higher the interest rates in a country, lower are the equity valuations. It is an inverse correlation Reasons such as rise in oil prices, faltering health of public sector banks, increasing inflation among others may lead to the equity market finding new lows in the near future. The offset is that corporate earnings have been robust this quarter (top and bottom lines) for a substantial portion of the market. The question is what level will crude become an impediment to earnings, and we think we are already at levels that will result in a dampening of consumer willingness to spend. That has repercussions for equities and continued rise in crude is likely to impact markets negatively What to do: These macro economic factors should no...